528 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



When the ponds are covered with ice those fresh-water 

 Ducks which remain in the north are compelled to go to the 

 open springs, as they require fresh water to drink. Care for 

 their safety compels them to remain at sea or in some open 

 bay during the day, but at night necessity drives them to the 

 springs. Here the gunner lies concealed to kill them. Some 

 even cut holes in the ice to attract them. A gunner near 

 Boston told me that during a "cold snap" he fired both barrels 

 into a flock of Black Ducks on the ice, killing eleven, and 

 found them so nearly starved as to be reduced to "skin and 

 bones." 



The following letter from Dr. George Bird Grinnell bears 

 upon this point : — 



"Ducks should not be shot after January 1, because many 

 of these birds mate in January, and in February and in the 

 following months are preparing for the nesting duties of early 

 summer. The birds which are chiefly shot for the market are 

 the non-diving Ducks, of which the Black Duck is the only one 

 found in considerable numbers in Massachusetts. These birds 

 in winter have the greatest difficulty in existing. The fresh- 

 water ponds and spring holes, where they naturally feed and 

 drink, are frozen, and the mud flats, where they might feed in 

 cold weather, are often covered with ice, so that food is 

 absolutely inaccessible. They cannot, like the sea Ducks, 

 dive to great depths in search of shell-fish. They therefore 

 seek out the few warm springs that may still be open, and 

 congregate there, searching for food, and the gunner who 

 learns of their presence at such a place may destroy the starving 

 birds in great numbers. 



"I learned my lesson on this subject in Connecticut in the 

 winter of 1875-76. It was a very hard winter, and almost 

 all the feeding and drinking places were closed by the cold, 

 while the mud and sand flats were piled high with ice far out 

 into the Sound. I learned that a flock of two hundred or three 

 hundred Black Ducks came at night to an open warm spring, 

 and going there shot two or three as they came in, and prepared 

 to have great sport. When I got these birds in my hand I 

 found them a mass of feathers and bones, for the breast 



